


Discontent

by Lizardbeth



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The spaceship is always just out of reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discontent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beckymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckymonster/gifts).



> While the movie doesn't reference LotR/Hobbit more than a nod to Gandalf, the name Middle Zealand for one of the lands made me think there must be something Middle-Earth-related there, although the forest and the castle are all we see. So this story is a bit of a ~~mockery~~ playful mashup with The Hobbit, and especially the LEGO playsets for the movies.

* * *

 

Once upon a time, in the carefully free-of-trademark land of Middle Zealand, Master Brollo found something amid the plants of the garden beneath the half-circle window of his halfling dwelling.

Brollo was not especially curious for a halfling. Few are, and those that are tend to be of the Brown Hair line, not Brollo's Beige Hair clan. The Beige, the Yellow and the Brown are the main clans of Halflingville - they get along just fine, until they don't. It's usually a fight over pie.

He considered leaving the strange blue thing there and putting some flowers around it for camouflage, but when he moved closer he saw the blue thing was a person. A child.  

The child was not a halfling. He was not a wizard or a longbeard, and he was definitely not an elf. Because all the elfs lived in Watery Vale, which Brollo had heard about from one of the Brown Hairs. Brollo had never visited there himself, because it was said to be ~~queer~~ strange. Not fit for Halflings, in any case.

The child looked to have fallen from up high, and had dislodged some bricks in his fall.

Brollo wasn't curious, but he was kind. He rushed right up to the child in the strange blue clothes with the strange helmet on his head, and he asked, "Are you alright?"

The child stirred, and sat up slowly. He seemed unhurt, though there might be a crack in his helmet. Brollo decided it was best not to mention the crack. No point in worrying the child. "What's your name?"

"Ben."

"That's it? Just Ben? Well, that won't do for these parts. How about Benny? Where do you come from, Benny?"

Benny looked upward. "Up there."

Brollo gasped. "From the Man Upstairs?"

"Maybe?" Benny guessed. "I remember… it was a dream. There was… all this technology, and flashing lights, and computers…"

Brollo patted him on the back, not understanding a word. "It's all right, son. You can work with me, I'm a gardener. There's plenty of space in my halfling hole for someone else, since I live alone."

So Brollo raised Benny as his own son, and Brollo was content. Benny was, too, mostly. The people of Halflingville were generally nice and didn't remark on Benny's obvious outlander nature. As long as he didn't get any strange ideas about traveling, he was one of them.

 

* * *

 

> ( _You might wonder if Benny had any maternal influence, but there are, in fact, no female halflings in Middle Zealand. There may or may not be female longbeards, no one's quite sure, but there are a lot of bachelor halflings. What they get up to in their halfling holes is really nobody's business_ )

* * *

Benny was mostly happy, working with his Da on the gardens. The flowers needed to be built and tended, and the plants needed to be watered. It was a simple life of the outdoors.

But at night, Benny was in his bed looking up at the far distant sky. No one else thought it was strange there was no roof on the halfling hole, but Benny wondered about it sometimes. He looked at the stars and he thought: _If I had a spaceship I could go there_.

After awhile he'd nearly forgotten anything about his life before Halflingville, but the dreams. Oh, yes, he had dreams.

_...._

_.._

_In the room there was a computer, electric lights, and other people who looked like him._

_"We love you, so much, Ben. So much." The woman - his mother? - she had eyelashes so she was female - hugged him tearfully._

_"We're breaking up!" his Father called. "The ship! It's breaking apart!"_

_"I can fix it! I'll fix it!" Ben protested. "I can fix it." He knew he could, if only they let him. He could see all the pieces, and he knew how to put them back together._

_"Not this time, baby," she told him. "It's beautiful in Middle Zealand, we used to fly over it all the time, but now you have to go."_

_"No, Mom! No!"_

_She opened the ramp and kissed him, helmet to helmet, one last time. "We love you, Ben!" And she pushed him out the ramp to fall to his new home as the spaceship broke up into pieces and was gone._

...

Benny woke up, saying the word, "Spaceship!" And he never forgot.

 

* * *

 

 

> _(The 1980's spaceship sold on ebay by the Man Upstairs. It was missing one of its minifigures, but bidding was fierce. The Man Upstairs didn't notice the missing figure had fallen into the wrong diorama for a long time_ )

* * *

Benny was only mostly content as a gardener, not completely. The plants didn't need much tending and that left him free time to think.

So what he thought about was spaceships.

He wandered to the great tree in the middle of Halflingville and he sat down there for a bit. He greeted the few who passed by absently and he looked up at the tree. He could see how it was put together, each piece of brown and green that made up the Party Tree, and he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was enough there to make a space ship.

He started with what he could reach, easily enough, leaf pieces and the lower brown pieces, But as he nibbled away at the bottom and rebuilt the brown pieces into something else, the tree became less stable until it was supported by only one peg.

One peg was not enough for the branch structure and the tree collapsed with a crash loud enough it was heard in other lands. It was heard throughout Middle Zealand for sure: The Evil King inside the Castle of Darkness arched a brow at the noise and smirked, knowing trouble was afoot. He would have to investigate, and if there was another Master Builder around, then he would dispatch a message to Lord Business.

In Watery Vale the elfs stopped singing briefly, looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to singing. The noise came from the halflings and nothing interesting ever happened in Halflingville.

"Benny!" Brollo frantically moved pieces of tree, flinging them this way and that way, to free Benny. "Benny, are you all right?" he demanded and shook Benny by the shoulders. "What are you doing?"

"I was building a spaceship, Da!"

"This is Halflingville of Middle Zealand, Benny! There are no spaceships here! Whatever those are!" He huffed a breath. "You built that- that thing!" He gestured to the ungainly pile of brown and green bricks. "Worse, you destroyed the Party Tree!"

"It's okay, Da, I can fix it," Benny offered.

"No. You're not going to fix it." Brollo was too grumpy for that. He pushed Benny lightly away. "We're going home. It's time for dinner."

At dinner over their chicken leg and a wedge of cheese, Brollo would barely talk to his son except for the most basic of pleasantries.

Finally Benny could take it no more, and the words came pouring out of him, "Da. Da, listen, I didn't mean to wreck the party tree. But I saw how I could rebuild it into a spaceship! Or, at least most of one, I'd have to find some other pieces, but still, a spaceship! You and I could go explore, see what's in the sky!"

Brollo stared at him, appalled. "What's in the sky? Look up there!" he pointed his claw hand overhead, and Benny looked up -- and sure enough the sky was there. "We see it just fine. No need to go closer!"

But as Benny's eyes went wide with hurt and dismay, fate and narrative convention threw them a bone, and a knock on the door interrupted.

Brollo frowned, since interruptions at supper were quite rare in Halflingville, but he pushed open the door to reveal a stranger. The stranger appeared to be a wizard - he had white robes and a staff, but it was the glowing eyes that gave it away. His voice was a rich deep molasses when he said, "Good evening."

"Good evening, Wizard. Would you like to share our chicken leg and croissant?" Brollo invited because although he wasn't curious and he wanted nothing to do with spaceships, he was polite.

"Yes, thank you. I am Vitruvius the Master Builder," he introduced himself grandly as he went through the round door and into the home, looking closely around as he went.

Benny didn't know what was so interesting - their home was like everyone else's, and though Benny could look around and imagine what else he could do with the bricks, it wasn't as if he wanted to rebuild his own house into a spaceship. Though, on second thought, that might be pretty cool.

While Benny was distracted by thoughts of how he might be able to give wings to their house, Vitruvius was suddenly in front of him, his eyes boring right into Benny's. "Son, you're a Master Builder."

"No, he's not!" Brollo objected. "He can't be."

"And why would that be?" Vitruvius demanded.

Brollo moved closer to him, and his voice lowered, "Because the king takes all the Master Builders. They're never seen again. So Benny can't be a Master Builder."

Benny listened to this, understanding that his Da wasn't just being a pain, but trying to protect him.

Vitruvius nodded at this, unsurprised, and grabbed the chicken leg off the table to gnaw on it. "So he does. All of Lord Business' minions in all the lands are tasked to capture Master Builders. It's a dangerous time to be one, that is true. But unfortunately, it's too late. Your son's stunt with the tree has revealed his talent to the entirety of Middle Zealand. I'm sure the king has sent his knights to investigate the tree already. They'll find out about young Benny here."

Vitruvius said all that with his mouth full of chicken, so it was a bit hard to understand his words. Vitruvius waited patiently, sipping from Brollo's goblet until they grasped what he meant.

"WHAT?" Brollo exclaimed. "The king's knights are already on the way? Why didn't you say so?"

"I just did."

"But that means Benny's in danger!"

"Yes," Vitruvius agreed. "It does."

"But -- But aren't you going to help him? Isn't that why you're here?" Brollo demanded.

"He's a Master Builder," VItruvius said. "He can help himself."

And Benny spoke, for the first time since the amazing news that the king or Lord Business wanted him. Because he was a Master Builder? "But I don't have the pieces to build a spaceship!"

"Then build something else," Vitruvius told him and then intoned, looking right into Benny's eyes. "You can build whatever you want. Whatever you can imagine."

"I can build -- I can build-- " Benny looked around. He saw the pieces but they were all parts of a space ship. A spaceship he couldn't complete because the pieces were all the same and he couldn't take apart his own house. Panic engulfed him, and he had no idea what to do.  "A spaceship! No, I can't build that. I have to build-- I can build--"

"What are you going to do?" Brollo demanded. "Help the boy, Wizard!"

Vitruvius sat on the chair at the table. "I'm going to enjoy some more of this mighty fine chicken and cheese. Oh, you have a croissant, too! Most excellent. And wait for the boy to build himself a way out."

"Come on, Benny," Brollo said, "We'll leave this useless wizard behind and hide in the forest. Hurry."

Benny followed his dad out the door, but the sounds of horses clip-clopping their way up the path were an ominous sign of the king's knights.

"To the back!" Brollo cried, and they went back in the house.

Benny, not thinking about it, just moving, tore up the paving of the hall and bricked up the door. They both ran through the dining room, past Vitruvius who was watching them with what was either calm interest or a post-food coma, since all the food was gone. Apparently being a Master Builder on the run from the President of the Universe wasn't a very well fed occupation.

"There's no door!" Brollo realized. "Through the window, lad. And run."

He lifted Benny through the open shutter of the window and Benny dropped to the ground on the other side, breaking several of the red flowers. Benny started to run across the field behind his house as fast as his little legs could carry him.

A shadow passed over him, turning the air cold. Benny looked up and saw… a red dragon, wings extended, claws long and sharp as knives. Actually they were knives. And the dragon's horns were made of red croissants, but no one was rude or stupid enough to tell him that.

The dragon swooped low, jaw open in attack mode. Fire burst out of its mouth, setting the home ablaze!

"NO! Da, no!" Benny screamed.

Flames appeared all over and around the house, the roof and walls collapsed, and in an instant, everything turned to ruin.

The dragon came around for a second pass, the look on its face rather smug as it surveyed the damage, seeing if there was something else it could destroy. Benny tore up the plants and built them into a launcher for the flowers and single peg bricks. He shot at the dragon, again and again. The little pieces did little damage at first, but Benny hurled a flower pot next at the dragon. That was enough to break off a foreleg, and the dragon bellowed in pain. It wheeled on one wing and flew away.

Tears streaming down Benny's face, he dropped the launcher and returned to the rubble of his house.

Before he could do more than look at it, all the tumbled bricks began to shift, and move so quickly they appeared to be moving themselves. The walls of the house rebuilt themselves, rubble clearing away, and Benny stared as Vitruvius stood in the middle, staff upraised, as the bricks floated into place.

Beneath, Benny saw Brollo - in pieces - his head and legs detached from his torso. "Da?" he whispered. There was no movement and no reply. Benny sat down next to his father's body and touched him gingerly. "Da?"

He looked to Vitruvius, who was now resting against his staff. "Vitruvius. You can rebuild him, can't you? You're a wizard, and a Master Builder…"

Vitruvius rotated his head side to side, negatively. "All can be rebuilt but death, 1980's Spaceman. Death is in the hands of the Man Upstairs, not ours. Perhaps He can remake Brollo of the Brown Hair Clan, but that is not for us to do."

A faint voice whispered on the wind, " _Build a spaceship Benny, my son. Build a spaceship and follow your dream_."

"I will, Da! I will build a spaceship, I promise!" Benny shouted up to the sky.

"Come, Benny, those knights are still on the way." Vitruvius created an opening in the wall of the still-tumbled house and led the way.

"I'm going to build that spaceship," Benny promised.

Vitruvius nodded. "Of course you will. It's a long journey, up the hill and down the hill, and through the Watery Vale, and through the Forest of Conical Trees and finally to the wall between the worlds. We'll be safe there."

"As long as you take me to a place I can build a spaceship," Benny said. He looked back at the ruins of his home but couldn't see his father's parts. He felt hollow and alone. "I don't care where we go."

He followed the wizard away from the only home he remembered, and Benny tried to forget Halflingville and all that had happened there.

Benny decided to think only about The Future. And spaceships.

 


End file.
